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* T A Y L O R O L O G Y *
* A Continuing Exploration of the Life and Death of William Desmond Taylor *
* *
* Issue 33 -- September 1995 Editor: Bruce Long bruce@asu.edu *
* TAYLOROLOGY may be freely distributed *
*****************************************************************************
CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:
The Life and Death of Olive Thomas
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What is TAYLOROLOGY?
TAYLOROLOGY is a newsletter focusing on the life and death of William Desmond
Taylor, a top Paramount film director in early Hollywood who was shot to
death on February 1, 1922. His unsolved murder was one of Hollywood's major
scandals. This newsletter will deal with: (a) The facts of Taylor's life;
(b) The facts and rumors of Taylor's murder; (c) The impact of the Taylor
murder on Hollywood and the nation; (d) Taylor's associates and the Hollywood
silent film industry in which Taylor worked. Primary emphasis will be given
toward reprinting, referencing and analyzing source material, and sifting it
for accuracy.
*****************************************************************************
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The death of American actress Olive Thomas in Paris was the movie
industry's first real scandal. But because it happened so far from home, the
blame was primarily shifted to the decadent environment of the night life in
Paris. A few weeks after her death, a special memorial service was held in
Hollywood; the memorial oration was delivered by William Desmond Taylor.[1]
The following items trace her life, film career, and tragic death. Not
mentioned are the rumors that for a time she was the mistress of Florenz
Ziegfeld. She also had posed nude for Alberto Vargas; his memorial painting
"Memory of Olive Thomas" has been reprinted several times.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
September 15, 1920
NEW YORK CLIPPER
Olive Elain Duffy Thomas was born at Charleroi, Pa., October 20, 1898.
Her family name was Duffy. She was educated in the public schools of
Pittsburgh and, at the age of 15, left school to work in a department store.
After working a short time she came to New York. Here she posed for Harrison
Fisher and other artists, her Irish type of beauty attracting many to her.
A letter of recommendation form Harrison Fisher to Flo Ziegfeld resulted
in her obtaining a position in the "Midnight Frolic" in 1914 and she
continued appearing in the Ziegfeld shows until 1917. Then she left the
stage for the screen...
Her first husband, from whom she obtained a divorce, was Bernard Krug
Thomas, of Pittsburgh, now employed as a timekeeper in a steel mill. She
married Jack Pickford in the fall of 1917...
Besides her husband, Miss Thomas is survived by her mother, Mrs. Harry
Vankirk of Philadelphia, two brothers, James and William Duffy, who are
connected with the Selznick studios here, and a five year old sister, Harriet
Duffy.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
January 1925
Terry Ramsaye
PHOTOPLAY
...Olive Thomas had no girlhood. She was born as Oliveretta Duffy, and
grew up in a depressing, smoky Pennsylvania industrial atmosphere. She
married into that life of grime, labor and sweat--a life unbearable.
That marriage was a desperately unhappy one. The girl fled to New York,
taking refuge in a cousin's household in Harlem. She haunted the streets of
uptown New York looking for work and found it at last behind a basement
counter in a department store. She had escaped the grime of Pittsburgh for
the grind of a shop-girl in an inferior market.
Then came one of those bits of Aladdin magic which are the lure of New
York. A newspaper bidding for shop-girl circulation announced that Howard
Chandler Christy, the famous artist, was holding a competition for a perfect
model, the supreme New York beauty. There were prizes to be awarded, and the
glory of having one's picture in the paper.
Oliveretta Duffy had recovered a bit from the depressions of Pittsburgh,
and there was a radiant Irish beauty just back of her eyes, ready to bloom.
She took a chance, reported sick at the store and in her pathetic best
clothes went downtown to the Christy studio to sit waiting with the throng of
ambitious. It was a convention of the piquant beauties of the New York shop
girl. Every race of the metropolitan melting pot was represented in that
array. Oliveretta Duffy won, the prize, the picture in the paper, the
publicity, everything.
Now over in Broadway Florenz Ziegfeld was engaged in his business of
"glorifying the American girl" per the "Follies." His merchandise was and is
feminine beauty, preferably famous beauty. Here was youth and beauty, with a
brand new fame in the papers. Oliveretta Duffy went to the Follies and burst
into fame as Olive Thomas. She was a sudden sensation, the toast of
Broadway. Strong men grew dizzy under her eyes. She was overwhelmed with
admiration and gifts of treasure, diamond necklaces, pendants, rings,
parties, orchids, everything that the dreaming little shop girl might fancy
on the screen of her imagination. It was even whispered about that the great
Bernstorff, the German ambassador, had sent Miss Thomas a ten thousand dollar
string of pearls.
On the wave of adulation Miss Thomas was signed by Triangle Pictures
Corporation for the screen...
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
July 1, 1916
MOTOGRAPHY
Olive Thomas, of the Ziegfeld "Midnight Frolic," has joined the
International Film Company forces as leading woman for Harry Fox in comedies.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
September 15, 1916
VARIETY
Olive Thomas of the Ziegfeld Follies has been engaged for the tenth
episode of "Beatrice Fairfax."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
April 14, 1917
MOTOGRAPHY
Follies Girl With Ince
Thomas H. Ince has engaged Olive Thomas, the popular young star of the
Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic and featured beauty of a late edition of the
Follies, to create important roles in forthcoming Kay-Bee productions. Miss
Thomas is now in California, and has already been assigned the lead in one of
the first plays that Ince will do under his new arrangement with Triangle.
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, about twenty years ago, Olive Thomas
became a reigning favorite on Broadway from the night--or morning--that the
Ziegfeld Frolic opened, about two years ago, and with the exception of one
season when she played the January girl in the 1916 premiere of the Follies,
she has been the bright particular star of the revels that have attracted
thousands to the top of the New Amsterdam theater.
A brunette of the vivacious type, Miss Thomas has grey eyes and golden
brown hair that screens unusual well. Despite all of the attention of which
she has been the center, she is said to be as simple and charming in manner
as though she had never known success. All of the former members of her
company have sent her telegrams of congratulation upon her affiliation with
Ince, which is a mark of popularity few Broadway beauties can match.
Miss Thomas made her screen debut a few months ago with Irene Fenwick in
the Paramount production of "A Girl Like That," in which she created an
excellent impression. Ince will cast her in roles that will give full play
to her sunny and whimsical personality.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
December 1917
PHOTOPLAY
It is no longer a great mystery-secret, that Jack Pickford-Olive Thomas
romance. On October 25, the former Follies star announced that just a year
before on the same date, she and Jack were married, prior to Jack's departure
for the Coast. Then in the spring Olive quit the bright lights for the
sunlight and became a Triangle luminary. She made no secret to friends that
it was on Jack's account. But news of the marriage was kept from the public
because, as the beauteous Olive says, "I didn't want people to say that I'm
succeeding because of the Pickford name." Now that she has "shown 'em", Miss
Thomas is not averse to letting the world know that she and Jack have been
one for one year...
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
December 1917
Jack Lloyd
PHOTOPLAY
A Broadway Queen Gone West
...No one is more popular in the big "lot" at Culver City. In tailored
suit and jaunty cap. she strolls about, with a pert offering or a ready reply
for everyone.
It is one of the legends of the studios that no one can "get ahead" of
Olive Thomas in repartee, and no situation is too unusual for her to puncture
it with a pungent comment...
"You know," confided Olive naively, I'd rather eat Boston beans and
butter cakes in Childs than the most expensive mess the French chef can dope
out in Broadway's most expensive lobster palace." Which is quite some
confession. Also, it is added proof of Olive's lack of upstaginess.
"Life's too short and fate too funny to get upstage," philosophized
Olive. "Today they may be showering us with roses on Broadway and tomorrow
some fool director who used to be a waiter may be rejecting us as atmosphere
in a five reel five cent feature..."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
September 21, 1917
VARIETY
Jack Pickford, returning from a party at four a.m. Sept. 9, Los Angeles,
in his machine, with Olive Thomas, Catherine Walker, Mr. and Mrs. William
Gordon and Jack Dillon, crashed into a light truck, demolishing the truck and
upsetting the Pickford car and its occupants. Pickford was taken to
University police station. The driver of the truck suffered lacerations
about the face and body, a fractured hand and concussion of the brain. The
occupants of the Pickford car escaped with cuts, scratches and bruises.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
January 1918
PHOTOPLAY
Even famous beauties are not immune from the ills which the common herd
is heir to. Olive Thomas, whom an enthusiastic Coast exhibitor bills as "The
Raving Beauty of the Follies," was away from the Triangle studio for nearly
two weeks with an ulcerated tooth. She returned without it.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
February 1918
Herbert Howe
MOTION PICTURE CLASSIC
Can a Beauty Have Brains?
"A beauty never has brains," so sayeth she who may boast the latter but
hasn't the face to claim the former.
"The Motion Picture industry is a business without brains," so lamenteth
he who claims the brains but can't get away with the business.
Somebody at some time got up a rule to the effect that two negatives
equal a positive; so if you put these two minus quantities together, the
theoretical result ought to be brains, eh? But possibly the rule does not
apply to this syllogism. Furthermore, the latter premise isn't well
established, for there are some who refuse to classify the fifth largest
industry in the world as a mastodon with a cavity where its cerebrum should
be; altho incontrovertible proof has been established, it is said, by certain
sleight-of-hand financiers and scriveners of penny-a-word reams. One truth
shines out self-evident: there ARE beauties in the business. One of the
latest recruits to this army of crippled intellects is Olive Thomas, who,
coming as she does from the musical-comedy stage, cannot be considered a high-
brow of the type that wears bone-rims and talks about "the masses." But what
she lacks in mentality she makes up in diviner form. Praise to Allah! And
what she may now know about the industry she does not reveal by writing, but
instead has demonstrated an appalling inquisitiveness to find out.
A blithe young hurricane could not have created more disturbance than
did Ollie that bright morning when she swept thru the gates of the Triangle
studio in her shining motor-car. Question-marks sparkled in both eyes! In
two hours she knew the nicknames of every man, dog and "prop" on the lot. In
two weeks she was ready to direct, turn the camera or design sets.
"Madcap" some called her, by virtue of the appropriate title of her
first play. "Pep" was another sobriquet. But the director who was given
charge of the feminine dynamo preferred "Miss Inquisitive." Every day during
the course of production he was volleyed with such questions as:
"What do you do that for? Why can't I weep real tears instead of
glycerine ones? Why do some actresses smell an onion when they want to cry?
Onions make me sneezy, not weepy."
The eternal question-mark that punctuated all her utterances became the
terror of more than one expert. Soon it became the practice to explain to
Miss Ollie all the intricacies of a production before she had a chance to
commence her "third degree." In four weeks she was capable of turning her
hand to anything, from taming a wild animal--or director--to building the
sets.
"Why the thirst for knowledge?" she was asked.
"Well, you see, I'm only a 'Follies' girl, and may turn out a flivver
star in pictures, so I'd better be prepared for a carpenter's job if
necessary. Oh, by the way, why-----"
But the other party to the colloquy fled as the question-mark flashed
thru the air, and Ollie was left to solve the problem which she had suddenly
conjured up.
Her interrogative exuberance finally caused the scenario editor to lay
down his arms and give her a place at his typewriter, where she proceeded to
collaborate on a play. For several days her inquisitiveness was quelled.
She wrote with two fingers, and soon wanted to know how she could write with
all ten and at the same time be legible. When the play was ready for
production and Olive, with her supporters, was removed to the mountains for
filming the most important scenes, she inquired if she might direct. Of
course that was out of the question. No actress has brains enough to direct.
Why, some gentlemen who have never been on a lot say that regular directors
haven't enough brains to do it, so how could an ex-"Follies" girl?
"But why not?" retorted the irrepressible girl one. Finally, in sheer
desperation, the company and director signed a petition asking that Queen
Question be given a chance at the megaphone. Thereupon, the electric
energies of the young star fairly shot sparks. She directed with a zeal that
caused one of the players to moan, "Oh, Lord! it's going to be a regular
Keystone--speed--speed--speed! She's a demon for action. Does she ever rest
long enough to do anything but ask 'why?' or 'how?'"
Olive's avocation came to a sudden and almost disastrous end. She was
directing a scene with all the fierceness of a Simon Legree, when a snake
ambled up and, as though bewitched by the charmer, curled up affectionately
at her feet, with his neck upstretched. "Madcap" gave a wild scream, did a
leap that would have made Fairbanks look paralyzed, and shot down the
mountainside like a forty-centimeter shell, exploding as she went. When the
director in charge overtook her, she was breathless, but soon recovered
enough to say:
"Where did that infernal thing come from? Did he bite me? Was the
scene spoiled? What kind of a snake was it? Do you think there are many
more around here? Will you--will you finish directing that scene?"
"Yes! I don't know, but I think so. YES!" shouted the director.
Olive returned meekly to her duties as star, and for several days had no
questions to ask. Then she suddenly had a desire to pick the next location.
By that time the question-riddled crowd offered no resistance. She went
forth to explore. Hours passed and the fair Columbus returned not.
"We'd better hunt for her," suggested one of the men.
"If you do, she'll ask why you did it," shrieked one of the women.
Toward sundown Olive returned looking as though she had done an Annette
Kellermann without heeding the maternal advice anent hanging one's clothes on
a hickory limb.[2]
"Where on earth have you been?" chorused the company. "And where on
earth did you gather so many wet clothes?"
"Why be so deuced inquisitive?" retorted the dripping young person.
"I was looking around, when a lake got under my foot and went up over my
head, and I thought I'd found my last location.
That night one of her pet Japanese poodles wandered forth, presumable in
search of the location which Olive had failed to find--due to the lake
getting in her way. The mistress discovered the dog's absence, became
worried, and finally insisted on organizing a search-party for him. The
tired associates, fearful of the eternal "why?" trailed forth, but the canine
explorer could not be found. He turned in during the wee hours of the
morning, stuck full of burs and looking as though he had enjoyed a rough and
riotous night.
"Where do you suppose he has been?" asked one of the players.
"You reprimand me for asking questions," retorted Olive, "and yet you
would ask a gentleman that. Chow-chow," said she, addressing the accused,
"you need not answer. The question is irrelevant, impertinent, no bearing on
the case. Don't commit yourself. But you do look like you'd been sitting in
a patch of burs."
"More likely in a hand of poker with an ace up his fur," grumbled one of
those who had comprised the search-party, as the surveyed the dissipated-
looking poodle.
Olive returned to the studio declaring that she had spent the most
glorious time of her life up in the mountains, and that she had almost learnt
to write poetry from gazing over the clouds that clustered around the
mountain ridges.
Instead of being called Miss Inquisitive, she now has the title of Miss
Encyclopedia at the studio. When a visitor--a very dignified and commanding
woman--called at the studio not long ago, she was escorted to the stage where
the star was working. The lady made several inquiries which puzzled the
guide, so he referred her to the director.
"Turn her over to Miss Encyclopedia. She knows," replied that
gentleman.
Olive, who at that moment was draped over a chair watching a festive
cabaret scene and propounding a question under her her curl-frescoed head,
obliged.
"What is that the players are drinking?" asked the visitor.
"Champagne," promptly replied Miss Encyclopedia.
"Do tell!" exclaimed the woman, raising her lorgnette to scrutinize the
effervescent liquor. Then she hurried away. Shortly after Olive was
summoned to appear in the manager's office.
"What did you tell this lady that the players were drinking?" she was
asked, sternly.
"Champagne."
"But you know they are not. This lady is a prohibitionist, and she
accuses us of plying the actors with intoxicating liquor."
"Oh!" murmured the wide-eyed star. "Oh! Well, you see, I didn't want
her to think we faked our scenes. Come on back and I'll give you a drink,"
she suddenly exclaimed, turning toward the accuser.
After considerable argument the woman returned and was presented with a
glass of the sparkling beverage. She sipped hesitatingly, then with more
boldness.
"Why," said she, "it tastes like apple-cider."
"Yes, that's what it is. Sparkling apple-juice," replied the chastened
Olive. "Come back tomorrow and we'll give you some Burgundy strawberry pop
or Cook's Imperial lemon phosphate."
The lady departed satisfied, and as she passed out she remarked:
"I think your star, Miss Thomas, is charming, so entertaining and
interesting. She took me around and explained everything on the place."
This ingratiating manner makes it possible for the young actress to
accumulate her stock of information without arousing rebuke. No one--star,
director, scenario-writer or property-man--is permitted to upset the
discipline of the Triangle studio, where an efficient and smooth-running
system of production has been recently perfected. So only during waits or
off-duty hours does Olive receive instruction in the various phases of work.
The single directorial effort was made on a day when regular work was
impossible because of the weather, but she insists that she is always
studying the methods of the directors with the intention of becoming a
regular producer some time.
A recent production required a dancing scene in which a large company of
girls appeared. The director was on the point of calling in an instructor to
drill the dancers, when the star volunteered her services. For several days
she labored consistently with the coryphees until they had mastered the
intricacies of the latest Broadway steps. In return for this assistance the
director agreed to reveal some of the mysteries of his art, but only on
condition that the star was willing to spend time at the studio after the
work for the day had been completed. Was she willing? She certainly was.
Golf, tea and motoring were forgotten while she went over the script of her
next play, studying the author's descriptions of scene, setting and
character, and endeavoring to originate the little "bits of business" that
give the touch of reality and human interest to a photoplay.
"That girl has a business woman's head," remarked the director after
this course of study. "I believe she will be capable of directing some day,
but tragedy will never be her line. She'd speed up Lady Macbeth and have her
doing a fox-trot and a hand-spring. Olive is a joy-of-living optimist--but
an intelligent one."
Soon it became bruited around that Olive possessed brains--that she had
been actually caught using them in several instances. Such scandalous rumor
about a film player had to be stopped. I discovered the Thomas tornado
teaching a crowd of girls a new dance that called for considerable athletic
agility. As I approached, primed to question her, she ceased her dervish
whirl, brushed back her hair and gasped.
"Have you brains?" I asked her?
"Brains?" she puffed; and then, with a mischievous smile, "What are
brains?"
"Brains. Brains are--brains are--" I stuttered, and then reached for my
pocket dictionary. With considerable gusto I declaimed from Webster:
"Brains: (a) in vertebrate animals the large mass of nerve tissue
enclosed in the shell or cranium, regarded as the seat of consciousness. It
includes the cerebrum in front and above and the cerebellum below at the
back. (b), In many invertebrates, a large ganglion more or less
corresponding to the brain of the vertebrate."
I paused and regarded the lady before me.
"A vertebrate!" she muttered in awed manner. "You want to know if I am
a vertebrate?"
I nodded solemnly.
"I don't know. I hope not," she replied. "But they call me 'most
everything around here."
Then with a flash of inspiration and a smile, she exclaimed:
"The best way to find out whether I've got them is to ask somebody,
isn't it? Do you think I ask too many question? Do you think it pays to
learn something about pictures? Are all film actresses boobs? Maybe I'm
getting my celluloid diploma too fast, eh? Think I have brains?"
"I'm sure I don't know. You are almost too good-looking, Miss Thomas,
to be so afflicted."
"Is it an affliction? Don't good-looking people have them? Why don't
they? Do just homely people have them? Have you--" I spun dizzily around
on one heel, Chaplin fashion, and did a Keystone marathon through the studio
gates. I have an awful hunch that the young lady with interrogation points
dancing in both eyes is a super-vertebrate--a beauty with brains! But where
did she get 'em? Why, in the business without brains!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
March 1918
PHOTOPLAY
[from a film review]...Olive Thomas is as sparkling as champagne...
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
May 1918
PHOTOPLAY
Under the Allied Draft Agreement, Jack Pickford, a Canadian by birth,
has been drafted. Olive Thomas Pickford has given up the Pickford home in
Los Angeles.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
July 1918
PHOTOPLAY
Olive Thomas complained the other day that she was simply all out of
tears. Her director had made the request that she shed a few saline drops
over the prostrate form of William V. Mong, who in times away from the
camera's stress, raises little piggies and geese, and Olive sobbed and
sniffled and thought of all the saddest things in the world, but nary a
teardrop would come.
"Most times," she said, "I can cry to order, but now I think I'm cried
out. First I was called East by my mother's illness, spent weeks with her at
the hospital at Pittsburgh where she almost died, and then Jack"--this being
Jack Pickford, her husband--"enlisted in the aviation corps and went to war,
and--I'm afraid that these bigger things have blotted up the tears that once
I could give to the screen."
Whereupon her director, hearing the remark about Jack, took her to one
side and began talking to her about what might happen to Jack in the war
zone. He was still bound to have those tears. But he failed, even though
Olive did faint at the railway station when she bade Jack good-bye.
"I'm not afraid. Whatever happens, Jack's doing the thing I would want
him to do. And I can be brave, too," she said.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
June 30, 1918
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
Los Angeles--Olive Thomas, former "Follies" beauty, who now is one of
Triangle's best bets, is driving a handsome new sixteen-valve roadster
painted a canary yellow. Miss Thomas purchased the car for her sailor-boy
husband, Jack Pickford, but grew tired of waiting for him to arrive from New
York for a furlough and is using it herself while her coupe is being
overhauled and painted.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
October 1918
Delight Evans
PHOTOPLAY
[from an interview with Olive Thomas in Chicago]...She's too matter-of-
fact even to try to impress you. She told me she hoped to have some real
parts to play; something more than simp ingenues. "I might just as well go
back on the stage, if they won't give me bigger things to do in the movies.
It's all work-work-work out in California; and one likes to feel one's done
something to show for it." She showed me some stills for her new picture;
she was taking them with her--"to show Jack, in N.Y." "Toton" is seven
reels, and Olive plays a boy in some of it. "This is the first real thing
I've ever done, I think. I hope they'll like it. I want them to take my
work in it seriously, critically--" Yes, she's the same Olive who was in the
Follies, where every girl knows that she may fill her role indifferently, but
not her stockings. Olive, you see, is making pictures to show 'em that she
can act, too. "At least," she concluded, "it gives me a chance to show what
I can do; maybe that won't be much, but I can try."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
August 8, 1918
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Bringing with her her own radiant smile, looking prettier than ever, and
fetching along pleasant memories of a joyous reunion with friend husband Jack
Pickford, and a nice new outfit of fall gowns, Olive Thomas, Triangle star,
arrived home from New York day before yesterday and is preparing to go to
work once more.
"Yes, I had a lovely time," said Miss Thomas, "and the best of it is
Jack is coming West after a while--we don't know just when, but he's quite
certain to pay us a visit in the near future."
"Did you find the styles changed any?"
"Well, I don't know. You see, Jack and I were so busy--"
"And how did the Broadway shows seem to you?"
"Well, yes, the shows were nice. You just ought to see Jack in his
uniform! He's just too--"
"Did you meet any submarines?"
"Well, maybe. But it was nice to find Jack in such wonderful health and
spirits."
"I suppose the styles are all military?"
"Oh, my, yes, and I have just the cutest motoring cap--just like
Jack's!"
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
August 18, 1918
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
Los Angeles--We sincerely regret our inability to publish at this time
Olive Thomas's appreciation of this glorious State called "My California."
Never before has any one so brilliantly and completely covered the subject.
The recent rendition of this work at the banquet given to Sid Grauman by
Mr. Samuel Goldfish was the sensation of the evening.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
September 5, 1918
LOS ANGELES HERALD
A jinx seems to hover over Olive Thomas, Triangle star, and her
automobiles. Just before leaving for her vacation in New York, her new
roadster figured in a collision in which it came off second best, and, as her
coupe was being overhauled, the dainty little screen favorite was forced to
resort to the hard-riding taxi.
The other day Miss Thomas and a friend were motoring to the home of
Julian Eltinge for tea.
Eltinge lives in a castle on top of one of the picturesque Hollywood
hills and in making the steep climb the Triangle star lost control of her
car, crashing into a stone wall.
The machine is now in the "hospital," although Olive and her companion
escaped injury. Now Miss Thomas is riding to the studio in a--fliver. And
she really owns the auto.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
January 1919
PHOTOPLAY
At the Triangle studio, the [influenza] epidemic order merely hastened
the disintegration of what was once the most formidable factory in filmdom.
Olive Thomas and Alma Rubens, the two remaining stars, were disposed of by
the payment of whatever salary was due on their respective contracts.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
December 18, 1918
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
Olive Thomas a Selznick Star
Olive Thomas, after all, has not put her name to a Select contract. It
was Myron Selznick who corralled the young lady and made her the first star
of the Selznick Pictures Company.
Several other companies, we hear, had their eye on Miss Thomas, but it
was finally Myron who made her believe she had the best chance for fame and
fortune by joining his company.
He is now "dickering" with several theatrical managers in the hope that
he can get a suitable vehicle for Miss Thomas. She wants a play which has
had a success on the stage. While no definite plans have been made, young
Mr. Selznick expects to produce on the Coast. Miss Thomas is hoping, at any
rate, such will be his determination, since her husband, Jack Pickford, is
already at work there.
It would be, indeed, an unkind trick of fate if she were detained in the
East now, for all last Summer and Spring, while she was working in the
Triangle studios in the West, her husband was busy in the navy here in New
York.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
January 11, 1919
LOS ANGELES HERALD
Charles Giblyn, the director, has arrived to direct Olive Thomas, who
gets in tomorrow. Miss Thomas is coming sooner than she originally planned
owing to the sudden attack of illness which sent her husband, Jack Pickford,
to the hospital.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
May 1919
PHOTOPLAY
When Olive Thomas alighted from the train at Los Angeles station, she
stepped right into the arms of husband Jack Pickford--and incidentally, into
the Pickford limousine...It is said Jack made life miserable around the L.A.
Athletic Club before Olive came from the east to make pictures, permanently,
in California. The Pickfords are now bungalowing in a palace on Wilshire
Boulevard.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
March 21, 1919
Guy Price
VARIETY
Los Angeles--Olive Thomas' car struck a nine-year-old boy and seriously
injured him. A week before the auto driven by Jack Pickford also hit a boy.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
June 1919
Elizabeth Peltret
MOTION PICTURE
[from an interview with Olive Thomas]...She was made a salesgirl in
ginghams, and went around bragging about how lucky she was to be "the
youngest saleslady at Horne's."
"I am a good judge of ginghams to this day," she said. "No one can put
anything over on me in that line." Indeed, you get the impression that any
one who tries to put anything over on her in any line is in for defeat. "My
ideal of those days," she went on, "was Miss Milligan, the head of the
ginghams. She was small and cute, and to be like her some day was the top
hope of my childhood!"
Her first great adventure was a visit to relatives in New York City.
There was bitter mixed with the sweet, for she set forth thrilled with dreams
of the joys she was going to have in the city, only to arrive when it was in
the grip of the worst blizzard of several winters. For days that seemed
months to her she was snowed in her aunt's home. When she did get out, she
made up her mind to stay in New York.
"It gripped me as it has gripped its other millions," she said. She
found something to do. "It was not long before I began posing for
photographic art studies and later for artists. It was wonderful pay for
me--fifty cents an hour." She has posed for Harrison Fisher ("you can say I
ADORE him," teasingly), Penrhyn Stanlaws, Haskell Coffin and other famous
painters.
"How," I asked, "did you get started with Ziegfeld?"
"I just went up there and asked for a job," she answered.
"No letters of introduction or anything?"
"No; I just went up and asked for a job and got it. I didn't do much at
first--just posed around, standing in boxes and frames while some one sang
songs at me.
"Do you know Jim Buck?" she asked, suddenly.
I said I didn't, and a moment later regretted that I didn't. She said
he was as nice as any one could be. "He gave me my first big laugh while
with Ziegfeld. After I was engaged I was told to get practice clothes.
I had no idea what practice clothes were, but one of the girls told me that a
middy and a pair of bloomers would do. I already had bloomers--the kind they
were wearing with a type of dress. Mine ran down to my ankles and ended in a
ruffle. I put them on and wore them for several days.
"One day Jim Buck came to me and said, 'Miss Thomas, I am going to ask
you something. I do hope you won't be offended. It's about those bloomers
that you wear. Are you bow-legged?'"
"'No!' I answered.
"'Then why on earth do you wear them?' he exclaimed. We've been afraid
to order a costume for you.'
"After that I got a regular gym suit."
Olive Thomas has a mother, two brothers and a little sister. One of the
brothers is about 25, the other not quite out of his teens.
She is always busy planning the lives of those she loves. She wishes to
help set up her eldest brother in an electrical shop in New York, and the
youngest--well, he is just back from where he went with the U.S. marines. He
enlisted the second day after we declared war against Germany and was with
the fighting bunch in France who held back the Huns in their rush toward
Paris. When he landed in New York, Olive was sick with influenza-pneumonia
and had been taken from her hotel to a hospital. In a wild panic he hurried
to her side. "I wanted to see you alive!" he said. "I knew they could never
get you into a hospital unless you were near dead!"
Miss Thomas sent the boy $1,000 recently as a starting capital for
whatever he might want to do. It was sent through the bank, but there was
some delay in transmission, which caused him great worry. He wrote to her
and asked her to please try to trace it, for, he said, "I'd hate to lose all
that money!" Just back from France and $30 per, there is nothing surprising
in that anxiety.
This incident in connection with her brother caused her to recall a
"fan" letter she received soon after Jack Pickford entered the service. The
newspapers had reported that she was going to New York to see her husband,
and the letter came from a fan living in a little country town. Enclosed in
it was $5, sent, as the writer explained, "Because I know you must be under
very heavy expenses, with so much traveling and your husband in the service,
and I don't think it right that you should have to spend all the money you so
laboriously earn."
"I appreciated that," she said, earnestly. "It reminded me of the time
when $5 looked mighty big to me."
There is nothing "up-stage" about Olive Thomas. She'll "kid" backward
and forward with all comers. She delights in startling people and,
especially, in shocking the dignified ones. Excess of dignity is as
provocative to her as the red flag is to the bull, and she loves to take its
possessors down all the pegs she can. Underneath all the kidding--no matter
what she might say--there is a bubbling humanity, a freedom from sarcasm,
that wins her way into the hearts of all...
"I think," says Olive Thomas, "that you die when your time comes and not
until then. I feel the same about other things as I do about death. I don't
think you can change anything that is going to happen to you any more than
you can change anything that has happened to you. That's why I never worry,
and that is why I don't think people should get conceited and think
themselves better than others."
Her first meeting with Jack Pickford was at a dance in a beach cafe
founded by the late Nat Goodwin.
"Jack," she said, "is a beautiful dancer. He danced his way into my
heart. We knew each other for eight months before our marriage, and most of
that time we gave to dancing. We got along so well on the dance floor that
we just naturally decided that we would be able to get along together for the
remainder of our lives."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
May 1919
PHOTOPLAY
Jack Pickford and his wife Olive Thomas with their respective companies
are also inmates of the Brunton studio.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
May 11, 1919
Louella Parsons
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
Just a Little Irish Girl
The little girl who lives at my house has a self-admitted crush on Olive
Thomas. Rather condescending to all things of a motion picture nature, she
came out of her indifference long enough to chatter for twenty minutes on the
star whom she dubbed the best of them all, and to beg for a story. Being
asked to do something easy and pleasant is so rare I astonished the small
girl by promising to grant her request--hence the story.
Olive Thomas came into town a few weeks ago with the Selznick Company.
She has since I last saw her become the first Myron Selznick star and created
for the screen the baby vamp role in "Upstairs and Down." Broadway has been
blazing with electric signs with her name, magazines have been filled with
her pictures and the papers have told all about Jack Pickford's wife who,
refusing to bank on the Pickford name, went out for herself and signed a
contract so alluring in its weekly demands, only a motion picture story could
bring it to pass.
And Olive Thomas might still be a little girl dancing on the Amsterdam
roof in "Ziegfeld's Follies" every night for all the difference this contract
makes to her. In the beginning I had to put her disposition to the acid test
and she met the situation so splendidly, I am almost inclined to agree with
the little girl who lives at my house on the Olive Thomas question.
One broken engagement and another one an hour later, which I expected
would bring an icicle reception, had no more effect on Miss Thomas than to
say to my apologies:
"Oh, that's all right; I am often late. I know you were busy."
Later I commented on this and on how much I liked her way of being
natural, without the temperamental camouflage so many actresses feel a
necessity.
"I am only a little Irish girl," she said. "Why should I try to pretend
to the world I am something wonderful--when every one knows who I am and what
I am?"
The Pickfords have taken Olive Thomas to their hearts for just that
quality. They are themselves wholesome real people, who dislike pretense of
any sort. I remember Mrs. Pickford--Mother, as Olive calls her--talked at
some length on the new daughter-in-law and gave me to understand she couldn't
have done a better job if the had picked a wife for Jack herself.
And they are in love with these two young people. The very first thing
Olive told me was that she had talked to Jack the night before in Los Angeles
and he would be in New York in about two weeks.
"We have leased the Hitchcock place in 'Great Neck'--the Raymond
Hitchcock house for the summer, and Jack is coming on to make pictures here
so we can be together. There is a tea garden, and a private bathing beach
and we are going to have just lots of parties there this summer!"
Jack and Olive slipped over into New Jersey and were married without any
of the family. Thomas Meighan who acted as chaperone and stood sponsor for
the two youngsters was immediately dubbed "our illegitimate father" by Olive,
who says she loves him for having helped her marry her Jack.
"One of these days," Olive told me, looking at me out of her big blue
eyes, "we are going to have a family. I love children. You know I have a
little sister 5 years old, the most beautiful child you ever saw. I have
teased mother to give her to us, but of course she won't. Little Harriet is
my step-sister, but I love her to death. Little Mary Rupp, Lottie Pickford's
child, too, is a darling, unspoiled despite all the affection and gifts
lavished on her by the whole family. She and I had some pictures taken
together--she calls me Aunt Tottle," explained Aunt Tottle, showing me with
pride of photograph of herself and little Mary.
While Olive Thomas's screen beauty is one of the things which has helped
her win stardom, she isn't half as lovely in pictures as she is off the
screen. She has light brown hair, with a golden glint. It reaches to her
shoulder and falls in soft waves; then her eyes are the blue black eyes which
only an Irish heritage can give. She wore--I promised the little girl at my
house to put this in--a pink negligee, all soft crepe and lace, which brought
out the pink in her cheeks. A saucy little dimple in her chin completed a
picture Howard Chandler Christy or James Montgomery Flagg might have been
glad to have sketched for a magazine cover.
Usually when Dame Fortune comes a smiling and pours into the laps of one
of her children everything which wealth can give she creates dissatisfaction,
and horrid discontent. In the case of Olive Thomas, she has managed to avoid
this error. Olive Thomas is as pleased over her blessings as a child. She
makes no secret of her happiness, and her enthusiasm over the good things
which have come her way.
"Mrs. Selznick gave me a gorgeous hat," she said, "with two paradise
plumes on--a lovely blue, so smart and good looking." And then we talked of
clothes, and of all the pretty things young Mrs. Pickford has purchased for
her summer wardrobe, such adorable blue frocks, the color of her eyes, and
such dainty white and lavender dresses to wear when the hot days come.
While we were chatting Blanche, who does Miss Thomas's nails and keeps
her hair in good condition, came in to give a manicure. She had no more than
started when a telephone call took her client into the next room.
Thereupon Blanche, who is colored, launched into a description of Miss
Thomas, her virtues, her beauty and why she would rather manicure and shampoo
her than any other customer.
"She'ss popular, too," said Blanche. "You ought to have been here
Easter. This here room was a blooming garden. She had lillies, roses,
orchids and that plant of azaleas was in bloom then--everybody likes her--"
Blanche would have probably been talking yet if the door hadn't opened
and a young man burst in calling loudly for Olive. At that particular moment
Olive merged from the inner room and astonished me to the point of
speechlessness by throwing herself in the youth's arms, kissing him and
calling him darling.
"My brother," she said, "destined to be the world's greatest cameraman.
He has been in the marines and is out now and I am having him learn the
motion picture business."
Miss Thomas has brought her chauffeur and a new Locomobile all the way
from California. Just now she is sticking to the California license. That
is, until the chauffeur learns New York, she said. It may be cheaper if he
gets in any difficulties.
"Has he ever been in any difficulty?" I asked.
"Well, once," she said. "I bought Jack a Stutz for a present--a
surprise. I asked the chauffeur to have it all ready for my husband and he
promised. I was leaving town. He had it ready all right. He took some
girls out and smashed the car into bits."
"Did you discharge him?" I asked.
"Oh, I couldn't do that. You see he was sorry and the car was insured."
Which is like Olive Thomas, who is the most human young person it has
been my pleasure to meet in many a day, and I forgot to say Miss Thomas is
just out of the hospital where she went to get rid of an attack of the "flu."
She explained she was still a little wobbly and she thought she might die she
felt so sick during the first days of the "flu."
Brother and I watched Blanche manicure Miss Olive, and then I found I
had stayed so long, I would have to hurry if I hoped to get my department
written by night. That's the difficulty of conducting a column, it's always
intruding when you are having a nice time.
And I do like chatting with this little star who calls herself "just a
little Irish girl" and instead of ranting over a picture of herself which
came out very badly, smiles and says:
"Here you have the only cross-eyed motion picture star in the world.
I told Mr. Selznick I dared him to advertise me that way."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
October 1919
PHOTOPLAY
[photo caption:] Olive Thomas makes a tea-party for her tiny step-
sister, who came all the way from Pennsylvania to pay aunt Olive a mid-summer
visit. Miss Thomas has a country place on Long Island, and whenever she can
be spared from film and social duties she spends the time dispensing goodies
to this adoring--and adorable blonde baby.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
January 6, 1920
Helen Rockwell
EXHIBITOR'S TRADE REVIEW
Olive Thomas is happy again! Perhaps you don't know that she has ever
been unhappy. But we have her word for her brand-new exuberance. She admits
her change of feeling. It's this way--
We found "Ollie" having fun with a pile of dresses which might have been
the result of a raid on a misses boarding school. Middy blouses, tam-o-
shanters and practical square-toed shoes perched brazenly on the top of a
heap. A mackinaw coat of many colors struggled for expression from the
bottom of the pile. "Ollie" was getting ready to go on "location." And now
comes the reason for her happiness.
Once again she is to be allowed to play the sort of role dearest to her
heart--the role of a school girl. Ever since ever and ever so long ago when
Olive played "Madcap Madge" for Triangle she has longed to do school-girl
parts. She has pined for them. She has loathed herself as a debutante,
disliked herself as a wife and mother, been disgusted with herself as a
fisher-maid--in short never been satisfied with any of her celluloid selves
since dear old "Madge."
"I made the picture three years ago," she will tell you earnestly, "and
fans have never stopped inquiring as to when I'm to play a school-girl again.
My fan mail is large--exceedingly large--and the one picture remains the
favorite. Fans haven't forgotten it even after three years, and now Mr.
Selznick has agreed to let me shorten my skirts again, put a bow on my hair
and romp to my heart's content."
Our thoughts flew back to some of the dream "creations" we had seen
Olive wear in recent photoplays, and we patiently endeavored to understand
how she could look a Middy in the face and grow excited. You see we are
feminine. Olive Thomas is not so much feminine as just a kid.
"But I want to create a certain role," she explained. "You see Mary is
the kid in pictures; Norma does drama; Constance is the flippant, flighty
wife; Dorothy the hoyden; Nazimova is exotic and steeped in mystery, my Jack
does boys, while I--I--why don't you see, I am just nothing at all!"
She grew quite excited as she pursued the subject. "I have no fixed
position. I don't mean a DEFINITE thing to anybody. Now you see if a fan
wants to enjoy a comedy, he knows that he can pick Charles Ray, or Dorothy
Gish and get what he's looking for. If a fan is looking for a picture of
youth he knows that he can walk in to see Mary Pickford or my Jack and find
it. For a frothy affair of sophisticated humor--there is "Conny" Talmadge.
If it's drama that's wanted--well, drop in to see Norma. But how--I ask you
--how can a fan know what he's getting when he pays his money to see me? He
or she is likely to find me weeping through five reels because I haven't a
child, or tripping the light fantastic as a chorus girl of questionable
reputation. I grow to womanhood and am tossed back to the flapper type.
I am nothing in particular. Don't you see? And she spread out her hands
with such an expression of utter hopelessness that we laughed right out.
And then she went on to tell us that she was to try her hand at school-
girl roles again and if the public took to them she was to go on doing them
for a while. She wants to create a sort of Booth Tarkington girl. She wants
to be in the feminine line what "her Jack" is in a boyish way. She desires
to be known as SOMETHING IN PARTICULAR.
And her next picture is to be "Sixteen" and is an original story by
Frances Marion.
"My Jack did 'Seventeen' you know, and as I'm just a year younger than
Jack it's alright for me to do 'Sixteen.' It's quite fitting, isn't it, that
I should?"
After we had exhausted our enthusiasm looking over the various styles of
Middy blouses which Olive fancies, we stumbled across the apartment and into
a motion picture machine.
"I ran Charlie Chaplin off last night," said Ollie. "I have a lot of
fun with it. I can get a new film every day. I just shoot it up there on
the wall and entertain my friends."
"Do you try out your new pictures?" we ventured.
"Heavens, no" replied our hostess sitting perilously on the edge of a
table and swinging her legs. "I hate my pictures. What's the use of
pretending I like my pictures when I don't. When they show me one of my
pictures up at the Selznick projection room I can't get a person to sit with
me. I 'pan' myself so hard they refuse to listen. I think I'm awful."
Now although you think Olive Thomas is all wrong and lacking in
perception you can't help liking her for it. It is good for the soul to meet
a person, especially an actress, and more especially a young, pretty actress,
who fails to enthuse particularly about herself, and who just loves Dorothy
Gish, and raves about Connie Talmadge, and thinks Norma is a dream.
"Oh, sometimes I'm not so bad," she admits grudgingly, "but usually my
face looks funny or my hair is not right or my tears look faked."
She is delightful when she shows you her books of "stills."
"This is a scene from my last picture. This pretty girl is Miss ------,
Oh, she's lots of fun--such jolly company. And this was Mr. -------. He's
an excellent actor. Been on the stage for eighteen years. And a charming
person. This over here in the corner is my dog--isn't the location pretty?"
Then with a flip of the head she turns the page and you discover she's been
holding the book with her thumb smudged over her own portrait. She'd go
through the entire book that way if you'd let her.
Like Peter Pan we can't imagine that Olive Thomas will ever grow up.
She impresses you as being a delightful child, playing at grown up but
actually uncomprehending the responsibilities which go hand in hand with
ankle dresses. She skips, not walks, and would probably turn a cart-wheel on
the street if she felt like it. She embodies the spirit of youth and we can
think of no one better suited to give youth to the screen than she. We hope
she may be allowed to continue with her heart's desire and give us school-
days. In these days when to look into the future is to imperil your
disposition for the season, it will be decidedly pleasant to look into the
past through "Ollie" Thomas and remember the good old days when times were a
little less hectic, and you were young.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
March 1920
Faith Service
MOTION PICTURE CLASSIC
[from an interview with Olive Thomas]...Then, there is the matter of her
looks--tawny-colored hair massed on her head, bright eyes, fresh coloring, a
springy sort of a walk and rounded lines. No, there is no suggestion in
Olive Thomas of "going out into the night" to find herself. She appears to
be quite completely found, between the pictures and her new and fascinating
occupation of decorating and buying for her new apartment and being Mrs. Jack
Pickford, at which estate she is quite evidently pleased, save for the long
distance and the long times that elapse between their meetings. Said Olive,
with naivete, "I call Jack my 'long-distance lover.'"
...There is a certain directness about her despite her most palpable
youth, which gives the impression of a small child in a mammoth toy shop,
given, suddenly, carte blanche.
...The apartment, she told me, was to be well on its way to completion
before the arrival of the "long-distance lover" for Christmas. It was going
to be, she said, with anticipation, the best Christmas they have ever had.
Their first was spent in Pittsburgh in the hospital with Olive's mother, who
was very ill. Last Christmas Olive was here in the East in the hospital
herself, with influenza, and quite alone, and so this third Christmas must do
a great deal of atoning. Also, they have a kiddie with them. Six years old.
Of the masculine gender.
I inquired.
The kiddie is Olive's brother's boy. Last summer the mother died and
Olive adopted the small nephew. Just at present he is going to school in
Tarrytown. At the date of my talk with Olive she was expecting him the
following day to come to New York, while she bought for him a velvet suit and
a fur overcoat.
All told, the young Jack Pickfords were going to make a high and festive
occasion of Yuletide. That very morning Olive had been buying Jack's gift,
consisting of a set of black pearls for evening wear, at Tiffany's, and there
was also a resplendent lounging robe of sumptuous silk, and then it was only
the first part of December...Olive laughingly remarked that her mother says
she and Jack spend all their salaries giving one another presents.
"He's always sending me something and then I send him something back,"
Olive said. "You see, we have to bridge the distance in some way. At first
I just couldn't get used to the idea of living this way, but I suppose one
gets used to anything, given time. When we were together we used to use up
the time fighting over things. I'd say, 'You were out with this person or
that person,' and he'd come back at me in the same way, and we'd have a
lively time of it, but we're over that now. We know that we can't sit home
by the fireside ALL the time just because we cannot be together."
...As I was leaving she showed me through the whole of the apartment and
told me, with the pretty pride of possession, of what she was doing, intended
to do, with every nook and corner. One feature of her boudoir is to be an
antique desk, lined--she is having it relined--with purple leather, and
before which she will sit to write, Turk-wise, upon a mammoth cushion.
All about there were pictures, framed in heavy silver, which "Jack gave
me," of Jack himself, of Olive and of the kiddie, besides various other
screen luminaries.
I came away with the impression of a child playing, very successfully,
at being grown up, and having a thoroughly good time in the playing.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
January 3, 1920
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
Olive Thomas Mourning Loss of $5,000 Bracelet
There is mourning in the house of Pickford-Thomas, the Pickford in the
case being the ordinarily debonair Jack, and the Thomas being Olive Thomas,
who, away from the screen, is Mrs. Jack, and neither of the parties will be
comforted.
That beautiful diamond and sapphire bracelet which Mrs. Jack so proudly
displayed to her friends Christmas morning as a present from her spouse is
gone, lost, strayed or stolen, and both declare they only wish it was a press
agent loss.
Instead of that, it is the real thing, and any one finding a little
article of adornment, which cost $5,000 in good cash, or giving information
which may result in its recovery to the Val O'Farrel Detective Agency can
draw down a very substantial reward for his or her services.
Mr. and Mrs. Pickford attended the Sixty Club dinner and party at the
Ritz-Carlton on New Year's Eve, and just naturally Mrs. Pickford wore the new
present. She knows it was on her arm when she arrived; she believes it was
in place after she had been there for some time. After that all memory
ceased, until, as the time came for her to go home, or when she was on her
way home, she became conscious that it was gone.
She has not the remotest idea when it disappeared, and, therefore can
only hope that somebody found it who will prefer the reward to the possession
of an article which will be thoroughly described for all pawnshops, jewelers
and policemen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
January 20, 1920
DRAMATIC MIRROR
Olive Thomas and members of her company, with Director Alan Crosland and
his assistant, William J. Scully, are in New Orleans taking exteriors for
"Glorious Youth."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
March 1920
PHOTOPLAY
Jack Pickford took a flying vacation to New York to spend Christmas with
his wife, who is Olive Thomas; she made a railroad leap from New Orleans,
where she was locationing, to be with him. You wish you knew Olive? Well, I
can only say you wouldn't be disappointed. She is much more beautiful than
she is in pictures; I have heard even rival stars say this.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
April 1920
Delight Evans
PHOTOPLAY
[from an interview with Jack Pickford] "I'd like to get Olive and take a
vacation; go to Honolulu. I am sure I'd like Honolulu. I always thought New
York was the place for me, and I left California in order to come here and
spend the holidays with my wife and then I decided (We had a good time and
all--even though Olive did lose the diamond-and-sapphire bracelet she got for
Christmas) that New York, as a place to live was_____"
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
May 1920
PHOTOPLAY
Olive Thomas has an apartment in New York and works at the Selznick West
Fort Lee Studios.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
June 1920
PHOTOPLAY
Olive Thomas lives on 59th Street in New York City, and has a nice
brother, who is an assistant director.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
April 3, 1920
DRAMATIC MIRROR
Olive Thomas has returned from Lake Placid where she had been making
scenes for "The Flapper" and is about to take a trip south.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
April 19, 1920
LOS ANGELES HERALD
Olive Thomas returned from New York Friday [April 16] and she says she
breathed a prayer of thankfulness when her train struck California, where
blizzards and tornadoes and zero weather are unknown. The first thing she
did Sunday was to go to Clune's Broadway, to see herself as "Floatsam" in
"Out Yonder," and it was remarked that she wiped her eyes furtively with a
bit of handkerchief when she thought nobody was looking. "Well, anyhow," she
defended herself, "when I see myself on the screen I never seem to be
watching Me, for Myself off stage and Myself on stage are two utterly
different personalities."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
July 1920
PHOTOPLAY
Olive Thomas and Jack Pickford are together again. Padre Selznick sent
Ollie west to make some pictures and Jack works there anyway, so a grand
reunion was had by all. Jack presented Olive with a new car and Olive spent
a full week's salary on a new dog for Jack.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
July 9, 1920
NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
Now that all the Selznick stars are hurrying East to make their
pictures, Olive Thomas joined the procession and arrived on Saturday. She
has no expectation of plunging directly into work--for even a poor motion
picture actress must take a vacation now and then. Aside from the urge for a
summer playtime, there are already two Thomas pictures reposing on the
Selznick shelf waiting for their release dates. The youthful Selznick boss
has told Miss Thomas it's all right to go to the "Follies," see "Honey Girl,"
"The Night Boat," "The Scandals of 1920," and all the rest of the shows she
didn't see in the untheatrical West.
Her husband, Jack Pickford, also has asked for a vacation or a transfer
East to work in the Goldwyn studios here and he is expected some time next
month. Last summer Mr. and Mrs. Pickford rented the Raymond Hitchcock place
over the summer months, but so far they have made no plans for a house in the
country this year.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The following item is related to some subsequent items published after the
death of Olive Thomas.
September 6, 1920
NEW YORK HERALD (Paris Edition)
American is Imprisoned for Smuggling Cocaine
An American who gives his name as Spalding has been sentenced to three
months' imprisonment for smuggling cocaine into Paris from Germany. The
supply, which amounted to four kilogrammes, was concealed in a trunk which
went astray and was sent to the depot for lost articles.
Here, after several days, it was claimed by Spalding, who declared to
the Customs' officers that it contained nothing of a dutiable nature, a
statement which was disproved upon examination. In his defense, Spalding
stated that the trunk had been consigned to him by a friend, one Mrs. Green,
from Mainz.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
September 9, 1920
NEW YORK HERALD (Paris Edition)
Movie Actress is Near Death by Poison Dose
Olive Thomas, wife of Jack Pickford, the brother of Mary Pickford,
America's "cinema queen" is at the point of death at the American Hospital at
Neuilley-sur-Seine, as the result of accidental overdose of corrosive
sublimate, taken in an effort to convince her husband of her affection.
According to information obtained last night by a correspondent of the
New York Herald, Miss Thomas attempted to take her life at the Hotel Ritz
last Saturday night, after a dinner party in Montmarte with friends.
Previous to her arrival in France, the Pickfords, as is well known in
American theatrical circles, had numerous domestic difficulties. These were
patched up and the couple decided to take a "second honeymoon" in Paris,
which resulted in their meeting many friends well known in the "movie" world.
On their arrival in Paris, "Jack and Olive" took an apartment at the
Hotel Ritz. Early on Sunday morning, on their return from the dinner party
gathering, something happened.
Although details are lacking, it is understood that Olive, while her
husband was peacefully slumbering in their apartment went to an adjoining
room and drank a considerable portion of a poisonous preparation prescribed
by a French physician "for external purposes only." The base of this
preparation was mercuric, and produced the same effect as corrosive
sublimate.
French physicians were unable to alleviate the sufferings of the popular
"movie" actress, and the services were requested of Dr. Joseph Choate, a
personal friend and a practicing physician of Los Angeles, now residing at
the Hotel de la Grand-Bretagne. The patient was immediately taken to the
American Hospital at Neuilly, where she has been given the constant attention
of the trained personnel of the organization.
At a late hour last night the New York Herald was informed that Miss
Thomas' condition was critical. Her husband, as well as Owen Moore, the
divorced husband of Mary Pickford, have been daily visitors at the hospital
and are expressing their deepest concern in the unfortunate occurrence which
threatens to rob America of one of her foremost "movie" stars.
French specialists were called into consultation last night and they are
understood to have expressed the opinion that there is very slight hope of
recovery.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
September 10, 1920
LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
Paris, Sept. 10--...Mrs. Clarence W. Wufelt of Los Angeles gave the
following version to Universal Service:
"Olive is my dearest friend. She had been feeling ill ever since her
arrival here. Saturday night Jack tried to persuade her to stay in bed, but
she insisted that, being unable to sleep, she wanted to dine out. We dined
downtown and afterwards visited Montmarte restaurants, including the Abbaye
Theielme. Among the others who were with us were Lieut. G. A. Ray of the
American embassy and Fred Almey of Los Angeles. We returned to the Ritz at
about 3:30 o'clock. Olive complained of fatigue and insomnia."
At the embassy it was stated that Ray left one week ago, ostensibly to
go to London for a vacation. Mr. Almey could not be found.
.According to Fred W. Nelson, he, Cyril Gray and Wilfred Graham, all of
Los Angeles, joined the Pickford party at the Montmarte. "But," he added,
"I can't tell you what happened though, because I don't remember a thing
after 2 a.m."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
September 10, 1920
LOS ANGELES HERALD
...It was on Sunday [sic] night that Olive, accompanied by several of
her friends, set out to "see real old Paris," went for the last time to the
famous "Dead Rat" of the Montmarte district.
All of them in the highest of spirits--on the surface at least--the
hilarity at the Montmarte resort waxed greater and greater until, with the
closing of the "Dead Rat" at 1 a.m., Olive Thomas and her crowd started on a
taxicab round of the clandestine resorts which are always open to the magic
sesame--gold.
But even the most maddening of hilarious nights must pass with the dawn,
and when the Follies dancer and star of the Los Angeles studios crept back
into her suite at the Ritz at 4 a.m. she found her husband, Jack Pickford,
deeply resentful.
Extremely excited as a result of the round of Montmarte resorts a fit of
deepest despondency seized her when her husband attempted to remonstrate with
her.
Olive went into the bathroom where she drank three-quarters of a bottle
of bichloride solution prescribed for face external use. Whether she drank
this intentionally or by mistake is a question as yet unanswered.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
September 11, 1920
NEW YORK HERALD (Paris Edition)
Miss Olive Thomas (Mrs. Jack Pickford, the American "movie" star, died
yesterday morning at the American Hospital at Neuilly-sur-Seine, after five
days of terrible suffering, as the result of swallowing a large quantity of a
medicinal preparation containing corrosive sublimate.
Although much mystery surrounds the death, Mr. Jack Pickford, who was at
the bedside when death came, denies that there was any attempt at suicide.
Miss Thomas, he says, had been in a nervous condition for several months and
merely took the overdose of mercuric solution by mistake.
The actress was taken to the American Hospital early last Sunday
morning, after first aid had been rendered by Dr. Joseph Lynn Choate, of Los
Angeles, who is stopping at the Hotel de la Grand-Bretagne. He is a personal
friend of the Pickford family, and was called to the Hotel Ritz, where he
found Miss Thomas in a critical condition, a half-emptied bottle of poison
telling its own story.
Although Dr. H. H. Wanlen, acting chief physician at the American
Hospital, remained in almost constant attendance, the condition of the artist
gradually became worse until Thursday evening, when blindness developed, and
her friends were advised that there was no hope for her recovery. Shortly
after daybreak, yesterday, she fell into a peaceful sleep, from which she did
not awaken.
The return signed by the attending physician gives the cause of death as
"acute inflammation of the kidneys," but it is understood that there is
strong probability of an investigation by the French police authorities of
the incidents which led to the fatal act.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
September 10, 1920
NEW YORK TIMES
Paris, Sept. 10--The French police have begun a thorough investigation
into the death of Olive Thomas, the American moving picture actress, who
succumbed this morning to poison taken, it is said by mistake, several days
ago...
Investigation also is being made by the police of rumors of cocaine
orgies, intermingled with champagne dinners which lasted into the early hours
of the morning, that have been afloat in the American colony and among the
habitues of the French cinema world during the last week.
Tonight in the Sante Prison the police were closely questioned a man
names Spalding, said to be a former American Army Captain, who was sentenced
to six months in jail Monday for vending cocaine...
Several of the Montmarte resorts which Miss Thomas visited on Saturday
night were subjected to a close investigation today.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
September 11, 1920
Forbes W. Fairburn
LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
London, Sept. 10--Olive Thomas, broken-hearted and temporarily
unbalanced, who died in the American hospital at Neuilly today from mercurial
poisoning, was convinced that she could never again bring herself to live
with her husband, Jack Pickford.
Such is the story of the tragedy that came to London today in a letter
to an intimate friend from a screen star on close terms with Pickford and his
wife and who was in Paris the night Miss Thomas took the bichloride of
mercury.
According to the letter, the pair were enjoying an unbelievably happy
"second honeymoon" when an interruption came. Jack made a hurried trip to
London, August 25. When he rejoined his wife in Paris, Olive, the letter
said, had told Jack that further life with him would be abhorrent and
impossible.
Then, the letter continued, came the wild party of Saturday night. The
letter declares that Miss Thomas took a large does of cocaine immediately
preceding the swallowing of the bichloride of mercury. (This is not borne out
by the physician's statement.)
She did not have medical attention until some time afterward. A friend
of hers, who had spent some time in London with the pair, said "they were
like a couple of kids, calling one another 'papa' and 'mamma.'" She said
apparently their past quarrels had been forgotten.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
September 12, 1920
C. F. Bertelli
LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
Paris, Sept. 11--...Dr. Warden, famous poison specialist, who had charge
of the case toward the end, declared a police investigation into the
circumstances under which Miss Thomas died would be of the utmost value in
revealing the facts.
"It would show," he said, "whether Miss Thomas committed suicide, as the
medical evidence indicates, or whether she took the stuff by mistake, as
claimed.
"Personally, I am convinced that if she had taken a sleep potion in the
same quantity as she took the poison she would be dead just the same."
...Today Police Commissioner Catrou, assigned to examine into the
circumstances under which Miss Thomas came to her death, returned a finding
of accidental death...
"Owing to Mrs. Pickford's dying without making a statement and also
because of the fact that she was alone when she took the poison, the only
possible verdict is accidental death by poisoning."
Such was the summing up of M. Catrou as submitted to the higher
officials. His inquiry dealt only with the causes of death, Jack Pickford,
the physicians and Mrs. Florence W. Wufelt, who says she was Olive's best
friend, being the only witnesses.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
September 13, 1920
NEW YORK HERALD (Paris Edition)
An autopsy of the body of Miss Olive Thomas will be held at the Paris
Morgue today by Dr. Paul, who has been commissioned by M. Pamart, the
examining magistrate, to determine the cause of the film actress' death.
While dismissing any suspicions of foul play, the police authorities
wish to make a thorough investigation before permitting the remains to be
sent to America for burial. It is said that the examination is being
extended to certain Montmarte resorts and is linked with the case of Captain
Spaulding, formerly of the United States Army, who was recently sentenced to
a term of six months' imprisonment here for bringing cocaine into the
country. The examination of the body at the American Hospital at Neuilly-sur-
Seine revealed only the discolorations which are always produced in cases of
mercurial poisoning.
Mr. Jack Pickford, the husband of the dead actress, in replying to the
questions put by M. Catrou, police commissioner for the Place Vendome
district, denied reports of marital difficulties. His version of accidental
poisoning and of the immediate efforts to summon aid for his wife was born
out not only by the employees of the Hotel Ritz but by the physician who
attended Miss Thomas at the hospital. During his wife's consciousness at the
hospital, Mr. Pickford made an identical account of the incident, and Miss
Thomas implied the accuracy of the account by the smile of confidence with
which she regarded her husband.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
September 13, 1920
Forbes W. Fairbairn
LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
London, Sept. 12--Jack Pickford and Owen Moore arrived in London by
airplane this afternoon from Paris for a few days. Pickford gave me the
following interview regarding the death of his wife, Olive Thomas, who died
Thursday from the effects of poison swallowed early Sunday morning, a week
ago:
"Olive and I were the greatest pals on earth. Her death is a ghastly
mistake. We both canceled work in America to take a belated honeymoon. We
were the happiest couple imaginable. Coming over she gave me a big birthday
party aboard ship. When we arrived in Paris her only thought was that she
had to buy some dresses and then get back home to complete her picture
contracts so that we could settle down to have a home and babies.
"I went to London to buy some clothes for myself and arrived back in
Paris the fateful Saturday night. We had dinner with a few friends and went
to the cafes. We arrived back at the Ritz hotel at about 3 o'clock in the
morning. I had already booked airplane seats for London. We were going
Sunday morning. Both of us were tired out. We both had been drinking a
little. I insisted that we had better not pack then, but rather get up early
before our trip and do it then.
"I went to bed immediately. She fussed around and wrote a note to her
mother. It read:
"'Mamma dear: Well and having a nice time. Leaving here September 11.
I will cable you from the boat and will tell you all the news when I arrive.
Olive.'
"'Love to all.'
"She was in the bathroom. Suddenly she shrieked:
"'My God.'
"I jumped out of bed, rushed toward her and caught her in my arms. She
cried to me to find out what was in the bottle. I picked it up and read:
"'Poison.'
"It was a toilet solution and the label was in French. I realized what
she had done and sent for the doctor. Meanwhile, I forced her to drink water
in order to make her vomit.
"She screamed, 'O, my God, I'm poisoned.'
"I forced the whites of eggs down her throat, hoping to offset the
poison. The doctor came. He pumped her stomach three times while I held
Olive.
"Nine o'clock in the morning I got her to the Neuilly Hospital, where
Doctors Choate and Wharton took charge of her.
"They told me she had swallowed bichoride of mercury in an alcoholic
solution, which is ten times worse than tabloids. She didn't want to die.
She took the poison by mistake.
"We both loved each other since the day we married. The fact that we
were separated months at a time made no difference in our affection for each
other. She even was conscious enough the day before she died to ask the
nurse to come to America with her until she had fully recovered, having no
thought she would die.
"She kept continually calling for me. I was beside her day and night
until her death. The physicians held out hope for her until the last moment,
until they found her kidneys paralyzed. Then they lost hope. But the
doctors told me she had fought harder than any patient they ever had. She
held onto her life as only one case in fifty.
"She seemed stronger the last two days. She was conscious, and said she
would get better and go home to her mother.
"'It's all a mistake, darling Jack,' she said.
"But I knew she was dying. She was kept alive only by hypodermic
injections during the last twelve hours.
"I was the last one she recognized. I watched her eyes glaze and
realized she was dying. I asked her how she was feeling and she answered:
'Pretty weak, but I'll be all right in a little while, don't worry, darling.'
"Those were her last words. I held her in my arms and she died an hour
later. Owen Moore was at her bedside. All stories and rumors of wild
parties and cocaine and domestic fights since we left New York are untrue.
"I am leaving for home Saturday with Olive's body. Her burial will be
in New York."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
September 14, 1920
NEW YORK HERALD (Paris Edition)
Accidental death due to mercury poisoning was the result arrived at
after the autopsy of the body of Miss Olive Thomas (Mrs. Jack Pickford) held
at the Morgue in Paris yesterday in the presence of M. Pamart, the examining
magistrate. No trace of violence was discovered and a burial certificate was
issued.
No funeral service will be held in Paris, but the body will be taken to
the Church of the Holy Trinity at three o'clock this afternoon to remain
until Saturday, when it will be taken to America in the Mauretania,
accompanied by Mr. Pickford and several close friends.
The last rites will be performed in the United States.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
September 17, 1920
VARIETY
Obituary
Mrs. Jack Pickford (Olive Thomas) sailed with her husband on the
Imperator Aug. 12, from New York. Sept. 9 Miss Thomas died at the American
Hospital, Paris, after having taken bichloride of mercury. Denials were
entered in Paris by Mr. Pickford and the friends of his wife of any suicidal
motive on the part of the deceased. The couple were affable toward each
other while on the trip over and often were in the company of fellow
passengers, also known in pictures. The same group often met in London and
Paris up to the time of Miss Thomas' death. Jack Pickford is 23; his wife
was 26. Miss Thomas had been featured with several Ziegfeld productions as a
handsome girl before deserting the stage for pictures. When leaving New York
Miss Thomas was a Selznick picture star, reputed to be under contract to that
picture maker at $3,000 weekly when working. Her type of picture that had
proven the most successful is known as "the flapper" variety.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
September 17, 1920
VARIETY
In Memory of Olive Thomas
Words cannot express my sorrow,
As I think back a few years ago
When I worked on the roof with "Ollie,"
(As we called her) and loved her so--
Her generous ways in those good old days,
Kind thoughts and good wishes for all,
Will live in the memories of her pals
As the "roof days" they recall.
M.F.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
September 19, 1920
C. F. Bertelli
LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
Paris, Sept. 18--"I knew Olive Thomas very well. In fact, I was invited
to the party on the fatal night," Rosika Dolly, one of the famous dancing
sisters, told me in discussing the death and the conditions in Paris which
are held in part responsible for it.
"I was not able to go and did not see Olive until afterward at the
hospital. She was devoted to Jack and he was devoted. As she dragged out
the agonizing hours before her death she kissed his hand repeatedly and told
him how much she loved him. Personally I am certain that Olive could not
have committed suicide while normal, and therefore I do not really believe
she committed suicide."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
September 29, 1920
NEW YORK TIMES
Women Faint at Olive Thomas Rite
Amid scenes of great sorrow and such a crush of mourners that women
fainted and men's hats were smashed, funeral services were held yesterday for
Olive Thomas, wife of Jack Pickford, who died in Paris of mercury poisoning.
The world of the stage and the screen in which she had been a much loved
figure sent hundreds of representatives, many of them bearers of well-known
names. There were besides hundreds and hundreds of floral tributes, ranging
all the way from a bunch of roses, orchids and lilies sent by Mary Pickford
to a wreath from the stage hands of the Selznick studios and including an
enormous floral "60" from the 60 Club and a wreath inscribed, "Our Pal
Ollie."
The simple Episcopal funeral service was carried out at St. Thomas's,
the Rev. Dr. Ernest Stirce officiating with the assistance of Bishop
Darlington of Pittsburgh, a male choir singing appropriate hymns. There was
a crush at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-Third Street by 10 o'clock in the morning,
the hour set for the services and the interior of the church already was so
jammed that it was found necessary to increase the number of policemen on
duty from ten to twenty-five, while mounted men were called to force lanes
through the throng that mourners might enter.
A few minutes later, as the last notes of the choir's "I Need Thee Every
Hour" died away and the organ pealed a funeral march, the casket, blanketed
in purple orchids, topped by a spray of yellow and brown orchids from Jack
Pickford was borne up the aisle. The pallbearers were Owen Moore, Gene Buck,
Thomas Meighan, Harrison Fisher, Myron Selznick, Harry Carrington, William
Kelton and Allen Crossland.
Among those who followed were Jack Pickford and his mother, Mrs.
Charlotte Pickford, Mrs. Van Kirk, mother of the dead screen star, and her
husband, Harry Van Kirk; Lottie Pickford, Fred Almey, Jimmie and Willie
Duffy, brothers of the late star; Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Selznick and their sons,
Myron and David, Katherine McCarthy, Mabel Normand, Marguerite Cassidy, Helen
Maxwell, Dudley Field Malone, Thomas Meighan, George Derr and William Semon.
As the coffin was being carried from the church at the conclusion of the
services, hundreds of those in the side aisles and the balcony came crowding
for a closer view. Irving Berlin, William Collier, Jr., John O'Meara and
other ushers tried to check them, but in vain. Before policemen could be
called from the street the crowd had surged in among the pallbearers and was
swirling about the coffin. Several close-pressed women fainted, men who
struggled either to free themselves or to check the inrush of others had
their hats broken and for a moment there was great excitement. Then big
policemen came shouldering their way into the press, order was restored, the
women who had succumbed were carried into the side aisles and the coffin was
borne out.
Eight automobiles took the family and immediate friends to Woodlawn
cemetery, where the body was placed temporarily in a vault.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
May 6, 1921
VARIETY
The sale of the effects and personal belongings of the late Olive Thomas
Pickford, picture star, which were sold Nov. 22, 1920, realized $26,931 for
the estate. Samuel Marx was the auctioneer. The sale was held at 115 West
32nd Street. Many theatrical celebrities were among the purchasers, a
detailed list of which is published below:
...One 14-karet gold cigarette case, $50, Mabel Normand.
...One toilet set, 20 pieces, $1,425, Mabel Normand.
...One diamond pearl brooch and sapphire pin, $500, Mabel Normand.
...One platinum set with star sapphire, $425, Mabel Normand.
...
[Mabel Normand was the only star listed. Some items were also purchased by
producer Lewis Selznick.]
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
September 1921
Willis Goldbeck
MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE
[from an interview with Mabel Normand]...She had some very beautiful
portraits, photographs of Olive Thomas, on the table, carefully bound. She
turned them over for me slowly.
"Ollie never saw these," she said.
*****************************************************************************
Olive Thomas and Mabel Normand
It is understandable why Olive Thomas and Mabel Normand were friends.
They both came from the same lower class Irish-American ethnic background,
and they shared many of the same personality traits. But how close could
their friendship have been--how often were they living in the same city
during their film careers? Each of them went back and forth between New York
and Los Angeles, and most of the time each was in the city where the other
one wasn't.
In April 1917 they were both in Los Angeles.
In September-October 1918 they were both in New York.
In January-March 1919 they were both in Los Angeles.
In April-June 1920 they were both in Los Angeles.
That seems to be all, except possibly for very brief vacations. So they were
only in the same city from one to three months each year, for a total of
about nine months--which does not appear to be sufficient time to develop a
really deep friendship. Yet it is clear that some degree of friendship
existed. The fact that Mabel Normand entered the Glen Springs Sanitarium
shortly after Olive's death, suggests the possibility that Olive's death
served as the impetus for Mabel to seek treatment for herself.
*****************************************************************************
It is tempting to speculate on what might have happened if the incident
in Paris had never occurred--if Olive Thomas had not died. She then would
have been the logical choice for such films as "Flaming Youth"--in which
case, the 20s flapper might not have been modeled after the boyish figure of
Colleen Moore, but rather after the well-rounded figure of Olive Thomas. The
loss of Olive Thomas was not just a personal loss to those who knew her, it
was a loss for the entire film industry.
*****************************************************************************
*****************************************************************************
NOTES:
[1] See WDT: DOSSIER, pp. 148-150.
[2] Annette Kellerman was a noted swimmer.
*****************************************************************************
For more information about Taylor, see
WILLIAM DESMOND TAYLOR: A DOSSIER (Scarecrow Press, 1991)
Back issues of Taylorology are available via Gopher at
gopher.etext.org
in the directory Zines/Taylorology
*****************************************************************************
.
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